British
comedian Rowan Atkinson makes people laugh as the humorous “Mr.
Bean.” But his brother, Rodney
Atkinson, a political writer and commentator, isn’t laughing
about the attempt by the media to make Nelson Mandela into a savior of
South Africa.

He
is quoted in the London Daily Telegraph as saying, “Mandela
and his ANC [African National Congress] were about to turn South Africa
into a Marxist, communist country when they were bought off by the American
Democratic Party and big multi-national business who showered the new
black rulers with wealth and power, and, above all, with favorable international
media coverage, in the lead on which was, of course, the BBC, despite
its treatment by that other genocidal racist Marxist, Robert Mugabe in
Zimbabwe.”

It’s
true that leading Democrats, such as former President Bill Clinton, have
been raising
money for the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

Meanwhile,
Jim
Allister, who represents a unionist political party in Northern Ireland,
said, “I think the uncritical hysteria following the death is verging
on propaganda.” He added, “Mandela had been blessed with a
long life, drawn to a close only by natural causes—something brutally
denied to the victims of his ANC and the victims of the IRA, which his
ANC so avidly supported!”

On December
6, he posted this comment: “When Baroness Thatcher died the BBC
fell over itself to show balance; Mandela dies and BBC eschews anything
approaching balance.”

The
British Daily Mail reports
that that the BBC aired more than 100 programs about Mandela in one week,
and that a total of 1,834 viewers and listeners had complained “as
the airwaves continue to be flooded with tributes disrupting radio and
TV schedules.”

The
BBC responded,
“Nelson Mandela was one of the most important world leaders of the
20th century whose long and complex life story represents a moment of
historical change for people in South Africa and around the world. His
death was something we regarded as sufficiently significant both to break
into our scheduled coverage and extend our news programs. His political
and cultural influence was global and as both a UK and international broadcaster
it is important that we reflected that, and the range of reactions to
his death, to all our audiences.”

Some
complaints are being directed against U.S. media coverage of Mandela,
who was depicted even by some conservative commentators as a George Washington-type
figure or a freedom fighter.

Going
beyond this fawning coverage, NBC’s usually reliable foreign correspondent,
Richard Engel, turned in a strangely positive
story about a rising South African political figure by the name of
Julius Malema, who has singled out white people for racist treatment and
confiscation of their property.

Engel
reported, “When Julius Malema was a teenager he was in the crowd
cheering for Nelson Mandela. Now he’s running for president as champion
of the have-nots. His plan is a radical redistribution. White South Africans,
just 10% of the population, own most of the land.” Malema told Engel,
“They [the whites] must give a portion of their land to black people.”

Malema
is the head of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), which Engel forgot
to mention is openly Marxist-Leninist. He used to run the Youth League
of Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC). The group is a self-declared
“radical, leftist, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movement
with an internationalist outlook anchored by popular grassroots formations
and struggles.”

The
EFF manifesto
includes “Expropriation of South Africa’s land without compensation
for equal redistribution in use.”

A recent
EFF event featured banners
declaring the “Honeymoon is over for white people in South Africa,”
and, “To be a revolutionary you have to be inspired by hatred and
bloodshed.”

Rather
than portray Malema as a serious threat to the white population, Engel
depicted the whites in charge of the “white-owned farms” as
backward thinking and fanatical in their determination to protect their
land through force. Some were labeled as “white extremists”
for training with weapons for self-defense.

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The
EFF also has a foreign policy that declares,
“…we call on the Apartheid state of Israel to end its racist
occupation of Palestinian lands, and join on the call for the international
isolation of the Israel through boycotts, divestment and sanctions until
they end the occupation. Furthermore, we join the international call on
the release of the Cuban Five and lifting of the trade embargo on the
Cuba and its people. We also believe that all economic sanctions on Zimbabwe
must be lifted and the people of Zimbabwe must be given a chance to enjoy
in the wealth of nations.”